Birds on hawthorn bush | Yamamoto Baiitsu 山本梅逸 | 1783-1856

Baiitsu lived in Nagoya, where he had little access to classical Japanese art. But he was the protégé of a wealthy merchant who collected Chinese art from the Ming and Ching dynasties. Baiitsu studied the originals with him and therefore always had a Chinese flair in his paintings; his works tend to show a penchant for the precious and magnificent. His paintings are also very different from those of his Japanese colleagues. The poetic empty zones that are so expressive and full in a Japanese painting are rarely found in his work. His use of color is all the more magnificent - clearly trained on Chinese models. This picture is extraordinarily rich in the nuances of the green tones in the foliage. Baiitsu also skilfully concentrates the most intense blue in the heads of the birds. These look brilliant because this blue is enhanced in its effect by the red accents of the Hagi flowers.